Defence, part 1: How does Black fight back?

Svidler-Jobava, European team championship, 2009. Black, to move, is under attack. How does he save himself?

Our theme over the next few columns is defence – hardly a glamorous subject, and little discussed, but of course vital.

White has just played his knight into the middle of the board, heading towards Black's king, and the rook and the queen are also in powerful attacking positions. What does Black have in his favour? Not much. But he does have a material advantage, rook for knight and an extra pawn. This gives him a little hope: if Black survives the attack, he could find himself with a winning position.

So let's concentrate on survival. First we should establish what White is threatening. To do that, imagine it is your opponent's move. There are two obvious attacking continuations: 1 Nxc6+ Ka6 2 a4 looks like it will lead to mate; and 1 Qd7, threatening mate on b7, is also strong. If Black defends with 1...Rab8, 2 Nxc6+ will win the rook and probably force mate.

Worrying, but now we know what to counter – Black to play again from the diagram. How about moving the king up the board? 1...Ka6 stops Nxc6+, but 2 Qd7 Rab8 3 Nxc6 is still grim. It looks like we can't prevent Nxc6, so what about letting the king retreat into the corner? First we have to move the rook out of the way. Finding a decent square is the problem. If 1...Rac8, for example, 2 Qd7 still wins.

What if we offered an exchange of rooks? Let's try 1...Raf8. In that case 2 Qd7 can be met by 2...Rxf7 3 Qxf7, and the exchange has relieved the pressure. And what about the other threat, 2 Nxc6+? Here the king retreats into the corner, 2...Ka8 and White has no way to follow up. If the rook attempts to avoid the exchange with 3 Re7, Black has the counter-attack 3...Qf4+, with at least a draw.

In the game, after 1... Raf8 White could find nothing better than 2 Rxb7+ Kxb7 3 Qxc6+ Ka6 4 Qa4+, with a draw by perpetual check.